When Therapy Goes Wrong by James Courtney

Author:James, Courtney
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2020-11-10T00:00:00+00:00

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More Tales Of Misery

BUT everyone disappears, no matter who loves them. Dave Eggers The stories in this chapter – Amy’s followed by Tim’s – are not shorter than my own or less detailed because they are less important, or not as damaging, but because of space and clarity, and frankly because no one would buy a 1,000-page book full of personal tragedy. Both wanted to tell their stories in their own words, and so they chose whether to focus on process, content, outcome, or a mixture of all three. No word limit or expectation was given, and we went backwards and forwards a few times to ensure that each account represented what they wanted it to, and all of their key information was included. Given the space of an entire book you would see that each of their experiences is as complex and far reaching as my own, if not more so. They are included here to provide a platform from which speak about their own experiences, and to further support the claim that therapist abuse, whilst not quite common, is not as outlandish as some would have you believe.

I had reached out on some mental health and therapy forums shortly after my own experience purely for some comforting words or the embrace of shared experience, and unfortunately found many people that had been through something similar or equally as damaging. At the time I conversed with a few people, shared some experiences and made some virtual connections, but still didn’t have any answers and felt just as lost as I had done before.

When it came to writing this book, I thought back to those conversations and reached out again to those who I had become close to, to offer them the chance to tell their story here, where people might see it, to unite against the injustice we had faced and to make this bigger than our individual stories.

Understandably most of them said ‘no thank you’. A variety of reasons were given, but mostly people did not want to revisit their trauma by typing it out or relaying over the phone, they wanted to put it behind them and move on with their lives. Some were afraid of being recognised, despite the promise of anonymity (and the nature of our virtual connection meaning that even I didn’t know who they were in ‘the real world’). There is something deeply exposing about taking something that is so private and personal and putting into the public eye, even if you don’t explicitly tell anyone about it. A veil of secrecy and to some extent, safety, is lifted and this is impossible to come back from. There is always the chance that someone might come across it one day and recognise you from some part of your account. Therapy is inherently personal, and many people choose not to tell anyone that they are in counselling to begin with, to combine this with the stigma of an abusive relationship and it becomes incredibly apparent why so many choose not to speak out, or to publicise their experience.

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